HOLIDAY HAPPENINGS

12th grade is like attempting to ski on a Black Diamond piste inundated with tall trees. The year stars fairly slow, meeting with friends and discussing the summer, but then when September hits, college application season is in session. The proverbial pebble in the snow is stirred, and begins rolling into a gigantic ball.

You may think that college applications aren’t difficult-- I mean you have a whole 3 months to work on them. Except, if you succumb to this kind of thought, you must have forgotten that Senioritis is a real thing. This late into your high school career, procrastination becomes a challenge. “I wonder, can I write this the day it’s due” will pop into your mind, and will act as the antithesis to you completing the Herculean task of applying to college.

As October starts, it seems that whoever you ask about college applications will say that they already have one essay completed (impossible, a senior planned ahead?) and that news will mentally torment you and make it that much harder to write your essay.

And so, the writing process begins as you continue down the ski slope, picking up velocity only to fall harder. Along with procrastination trailing closely, there is a fallen branch in your path, attempting to make you wipe out.

Soon, you are at the stage of reckoning, where you ask others to judge your essay on its merit. Remember the pebble? At this point it has turned into a 10-ft tall snowball rolling behind you, ready to crush your hopes and dreams. As you show others your essay, the unthinkable happens: “I don’t think it represents you” – they say. And then the snowball hits – freezing your mind.

Rewrite! Rewrite! Rewrite! As your now somber mind concludes, the only way forward is to rewrite, so you press the escape key, and the snowball starts rolling once again.